Sunday, February 15, 2015

ELIE WIESEL DEFENDS NETANYAHU'S SPEECH FOR WASHINGTON

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, 86, is known as one of the clearest voices advocating for the victims of the Holocaust. Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor himself, has devoted his life not only to the commemoration of Holocaust victims but also to the various peoples of the world who at different times in history also faced extermination attempts. It happened in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia. It happened to the Armenians. It is happening today in Iraq, in Syria and to the Kurdish people.

Together with his longtime friend Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, Wiesel recently decided to enlist for a cause no less important: preventing future catastrophes. Wiesel has been warning against the future catastrophe known as a nuclear Iran for many years. It is precisely for this reason that Wiesel, at Boteach's urging, ran full-page ads in The New York Times and The Washington Post, warning his friend Barack Obama, the president of the United States, not to sign a dangerous agreement with Iran and allow it to become a nuclear threshold state.

In an interview with Israel Hayom, Wiesel strongly sided with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to address the U.S. Congress on the issue, despite controversy and White House disapproval. Wiesel declared in the ad that he would be attending the speech, scheduled for March 3, and urged Obama to join him.

This was a rare call, made by one Nobel Peace Prize laureate to another, to change direction, put politics aside, and realize that the real danger is Iran and not Netanyahu's address.

Continue reading at the link. Wiesel's doing the right thing to stand by Israel at a time when serious crises are taking place, and make clear what the real problems are.

"[Netanyahu] doesn't have the luxury of living an illusion," Rubio said. "He doesn't have the luxury of pretending that somehow we can work this out as if somehow we're negotiating with Luxembourg here, or Belgium. He knows the neighborhood he lives in, and he knows his enemy. He knows their true nature. He knows their true intentions. And it is his obligation, not just to protect his people but to fight for that nation's very existence. ...

"You have your right to voice your concerns, but don't do this to an ally, don't do this to a nation that is as threatened today as it has ever been at any time in its existence. Don't do this to a people that are in the cross hairs of multiple terrorist groups with the capability of attacking them. Don't do this to a nation whose civilians are terrorized by thousands of rockets launched against them at a moment's notice. Don't do this to them."